The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

January 7, 2015 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Anna Fields. Blackstone Audio, 2004. Originally published 1905. 13 hours, 42 minutes. Library copy. Set against the backdrop of the 1890s New York upper class society, Wharton’s fourth novel tells the story of Lily Bart, an unmarried woman, beginning with her visit to Lawrence Selden’s apartment. Lily has feelings for Lawrence but must marry a wealthier man in order to keep her social standing. An unexpected visit by Lawrence causes her to change her mind […]

Categories: 101 Great Books, 2015 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Anna Fields, Edith Wharton

Snow Falling On Cedars by David Guterson

October 21, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Vintage, 1995. 460 pgs. Purchased. Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, Guterson’s novel is the most recently published novel on my list for the Classics Club. Off the coast of Washington on San Piedro Island in 1954, Japanese-American Kabuo Miyamoto is accused of murdering a local fisherman named Carl Heine Jr., who was found entangled in the drift of his boat out at sea. The accusation relies on the still raw history between Carl Jr. and Kabuo, between the Caucasian […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, AP Literature, Chunkster, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Fiction, North America, Pacific Northwest, United States • Tags: David Guterson

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

September 19, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Frank Muller. Recorded Books, 1986. Originally published 1949. 9 hours, 48 minutes. Library copy. Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two makes four. Yet in the city of London located in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain) — a province of the superstate Oceania (formerly known as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom) — men and women are denied that freedom by a political system called English Socialism, also known as […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Dystopia, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Frank Muller, George Orwell

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

September 12, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Lorna Raver. Blackstone Audio, 2008. Originally published 1920. 11 hours, 46 minutes. Library copy. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature (the first ever awarded to a woman), Wharton’s novel follows a young lawyer, Newland Archer, as he moves about the elitist social circle of New York City and prepares to marry May Welland. Before Newland and May’s engagement is announced as the triumph it is, Countess Ellen Olenska, May’s cousin, returns to Manhattan introducing scandal to […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Fiction, New York, North America, Pulitzer Prize, United States • Tags: Edith Wharton, Lorna Raver

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

September 2, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Richard Allen. Tantor Audio, 2008. Originally published 1852. 20 hours, 8 minutes. Library copy. Subtitled “Life Among the Lowly”, Stowe’s anti-slavery novel begins with Eliza learning her son, George, and the middle-aged Tom, who has a wife and children, have been sold by the Shelbys to pay off their debts. Eliza and Tom have been with the Shelbys since Arthur and Emily were children and the Shelbys consider themselves good, caring masters. But Arthur ignores his […]

Categories: 101 Great Books, 2014 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Richard Allen

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

October 10, 2012 by Christina

Yossarian, a bombardier for the air force, is furiously scrambling to save himself from the horrible chances of war. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is […]

Categories: 101 Great Books, 2012 Reads, AP Literature, Chunkster, Classics, Europe, Fiction • Tags: Joseph Heller

“Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare

August 13, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — print. Washington Square Press, 2011. Originally published 1601. 272 pgs. Library copy. Also knows as “What You Will”, this comedy by Shakespeare is set around the close of the Christmas season known as Twelfth Night. The lead character, Viola, is shipwrecked on the island of Illyria. Convinced her brother, Sebastian, drowned at sea, Viola masquerades as a young page by the name of Cesario in servitude to the Duke Orsino. Desperate to win the hand of the beautiful but […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, AP Literature, Classics, Europe, Fiction • Tags: William Shakespeare

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

August 10, 2012 by Christina

At Mansfield Park, the estate owned by Sir Thomas Bertram, his four children grow to marrying age along with their poorer cousin Fanny Price. All have been brought up to observe social proprieties but not necessarily moral ones. When Sir Thomas leaves to see after some business interests, the deficiencies in his children’s upbringing reveal themselves and chaos ensues. Only Fanny stands firm and the girl once see as peripheral by the Mansfield Park household comes to be seen as […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, AP Literature, Classics, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Jane Austen

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

July 24, 2012 by Christina

When Louisa Gradgrind, trapped in a loveless marriage, falls prey to an idle seducer, the crisis forces her father, Thomas, to reconsider his cherished utilitarian philosophy. The development of the story reportedly reflects Dickens’s growing pessimism about human nature and society. This novel — Dickens’ shortest — originally ended up on my TBR list because of its connection to and critique of utilitarianism. I took an entire class last semester on theories of social justice, including utilitarianism. Dickens takes on […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Charles Dickens, Patrick Tull

The Odyssey by Homer

July 11, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from the Greek by E.V. Rieu. Penguin Books, 1964. Originally published 800 BC. 365 pgs. Purchased. The first time I read Homer’s epic was in high school. I remember this less because of the content of the story and more because – Holy Batman! – my classmates and I were terrible at keeping a straight face during my teacher’s dramatic reading, particularly during the final scene. I wanted to reread The Odyssey after reading a retelling […]

Categories: 101 Great Books, 2012 Reads, AP Literature, Classics, Europe, Fiction, Greek, Reread, Translated • Tags: Homer

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

June 23, 2012 by Christina

GoodReads tells me that I’ve tried reading this book a total of three times — once in June 2009, once in November 2010, and now again in June 2012. The first time I tried reading the novel in print form; the second time I nearly reached the end by listening to the audiobook before giving up to a less than engaging narrator. This is the first time I’ve actually finished the novel. In case you’re unfamiliar with the tale, Twain’s […]

Categories: 101 Great Books, 2012 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Mark Twain

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

June 21, 2012 by Christina

I’ve struggled in the past to follow and appreciate Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness style, making my way only a chapter or two into her books before setting them aside. The audiobook version of this novel, read by Virginia Leishman, has been languishing on my iPod for a while now and, after my recent success with another audiobook, I though I would give it a try. The novel follows the Ramsay over a decade of their visits to their summer home on the […]

Categories: 101 Great Books, 2012 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Virginia Leishman, Virginia Woolf